It is known that the luggage space of hatchback vehicles is provided with a tonneau cover and/or separation device, the only difference between the two, apart from the dimensional differences, being that the separation device is provided with a retractable member consisting of a mesh, while the tonneau cover is provided with a retractable member consisting of flexible sheet material.
The tonneau cover and/or separation device is accommodated inside a box holder, generally produced by means of a profile in extruded aluminium or rolled steel sheet, provided at the opposite ends with members for coupling and fastening to respective support pockets, which are carried by the vehicle body and which therefore serve to fix the holder to the body in a removable manner. A holder of this type is illustrated for example in DE10252490A1.
The holders of the type described are not without drawbacks. Firstly, forming the box holder in metal involves high production costs and makes the “holder-tonneau device” unit very heavy. Furthermore, assembly of the tonneau device inside the box holder can be difficult. Lastly, the holder cannot be integrated with other internal vehicle body or finishing elements, for example shelves for objects in general or umbrellas, and has a shape (necessarily linear) and a surface finish which often do not integrate with those adopted by the manufacturer for the vehicle interior. A further drawback lies in the fact that removal and transport of the tonneau cover are difficult, in particular due to the fact that in order to disconnect the support pocket coupling and fastening members to allow removal of the holder with the relative tonneau device, the user must operate at the ends of the holder, which is not always easy.
DE10341851 and US2005/023854 do not solve these problems, since they simply concern containers that can be coupled to the tonneau device.
The object of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks described.
In particular, a first object of the invention is to provide a holder of a tonneau cover and/or separation device for a luggage space of a vehicle which is easy and inexpensive to produce, which allows any shapes, profiles and surface finishes to be adopted for the box holder, and which allows rapid easy assembly of the tonneau device inside the box holder.
Furthermore, a second object of the invention is to provide a holder of a tonneau cover and/or separation device for a luggage space of a vehicle that is easy to transport for a user when removed and which is easy and quick to remove, in particular facilitating the user in any assembly/disassembly and transport operations of the “holder-tonneau device” unit.